Beyond the town center, the Seam sprawled out for miles, the regular streets quickly dissolving into a web of smaller, unmarked lanes that rose up and then petered out for no discernible reason. Some boasted rows of worn, identical houses; others had makeshift structures it would be generous to call shacks. Many homes were so shored up, patched up, or broken down that their original framework was nothing but a memory. Many others had been abandoned and scavenged for their parts.
With no grid, no landmark of note, Coriolanus lost his bearings almost immediately, and his unease returned. Once in a while, they’d pass someone sitting on their stoop or in the shade of their homes. None of them looked the least bit friendly. The only sociable creatures were the gnats, whose fascination with his injured lip required constant shooing. As the sun beat down on them, condensation from the melting bag of ice left a splotch on his pant leg. Coriolanus’s enthusiasm began dissolving as well. The intoxication he’d experienced the night before in the Hob, the heady mix of liquor and yearning, seemed like a feverish dream now. “Maybe this was a bad idea.”
“Really?” asked Sejanus. “I’m pretty sure we’re headed in the right direction. See the trees over there?”
Coriolanus made out a fringe of green in the distance. He trudged along thinking with fondness of his bunk and remembering that Sunday meant fried baloney and potatoes. Maybe he was not cut out to be a lover. Maybe he was more of a loner at heart. Coriolanus Snow, more loner than lover. One thing about Billy Taupe, he reeked of passionate feelings. Is that what Lucy Gray wanted? Passion, music, liquor, moonlight, and a wild boy who embraced them all? Not a perspiring Peacekeeper showing up at her door on a Sunday morning with a split lip and a sagging bag of ice.
He gave over the lead to Sejanus, following him up and down cinder paths without comment. Eventually, his companion would grow tired, and they could go back and catch up on their letter writing. Sejanus, Tigris, his friends, the faculty, all of them had been dead wrong about him. He’d never been motivated by love or ambition, only a desire to get his prize and a nice, quiet bureaucratic job pushing papers around and leaving him plenty of time to attend tea parties. Cowardly and . . . what had Dean Highbottom called her? Oh, yes, vapid. Vapid, like his mother. What a disappointment he’d have been to Crassus Xanthos Snow.
“Listen,” said Sejanus, catching his arm.
Coriolanus paused and lifted his head. A high-pitched voice pierced the morning air with a melancholy tune. Maude Ivory? They made for the source of the music. At the end of a path at the edge of the Seam, a small wooden house tilted at a precarious angle, like a tree in a stiff wind. The dirt patch of a front yard was deserted, so they picked their way around the clumps of wildflowers, in various states of bloom and decay, that appeared to have been transplanted without much rhyme or reason. When they reached the back of the house, they discovered Maude Ivory sitting on a makeshift stoop in an old dress two sizes too big for her. She was cracking nuts on a cinder block with a rock, beating time to her song.
“Oh, my darling” — crack — “Oh, my darling” — crack — “Oh, my darling, Clementine!” — crack. She looked up and grinned when she saw them. “I know you!” Brushing the stray nutshells from her frock, she ran into the house.
Coriolanus wiped his face on his sleeve, hoping his lip wouldn’t look too bad when Lucy Gray appeared. Instead Maude Ivory came out with a sleepy Barb Azure, who had twisted her hair up in a hasty knot. Like Maude Ivory, she’d changed her costume for a dress you might see on anyone in District 12. “Good morning,” she said. “You looking for Lucy Gray?”
“He’s her friend from the Capitol,” Maude Ivory reminded her. “The one who introduced her on the television, only he’s near bald now. He gave me the popcorn balls.”
“Well, we certainly enjoyed those and appreciate all you did for Lucy Gray,” said Barb Azure. “I expect you’ll find her down in the Meadow. That’s where she goes early to work, so as not to disturb the neighbors.”
“I’ll show you. Let me!” Maude Ivory hopped off the porch and took Coriolanus’s hand, as if they were old friends. “It’s this way.”
With no younger siblings or other relatives, Coriolanus had little experience with kids, but it made him feel special, the way she’d attached herself to him, the cool little hand pressed trustingly in his. “So, you saw me on the television?”
“Just the one night. It was clear and Tam Amber used a lot of foil. Usually, we can’t get anything but static, but it’s special we even have a television,” explained Maude Ivory. “Most don’t. Not that there’s much to watch but that boring old news anyway.”
Dr. Gaul could go on all she wanted about engaging people in the Hunger Games, but if practically no one in the districts had a working television, the impact would be confined to the reaping, when everyone gathered in public.
While they walked toward the woods, Maude Ivory rattled on about their show the night before and the fight that followed. “Sorry you got punched,” she said, pointing to his lip. “That’s Billy Taupe, though. Where he goes, trouble follows.”
“Is he your brother?” asked Sejanus.
“Oh, no, he’s a Clade. Him and Clerk Carmine are brothers. The rest of us are all Baird cousins. The girls, I mean. And Tam Amber’s a lost soul,” said Maude Ivory matter-of-factly.
So Lucy Gray didn’t have a monopoly on the strange manner of talking. It must be a Covey thing. “A lost soul?” asked Coriolanus.
“Sure. The Covey found Tam Amber when he was just a baby. Somebody left him in a cardboard box on the side of the road, so he’s ours. Joke’s on them, too, because he’s the finest picker alive,” Maude Ivory declared. “Not much of a talker, though. Is that ice?”
Coriolanus swung the diminishing clump of cubes. “What’s left of it.”
“Oh, Lucy Gray will like that. We’ve got a fridge, but the freezer’s long broke,” said Maude Ivory. “Seems fancy to have ice in summertime. Like flowers in wintertime. Rare.”
Coriolanus agreed. “My grandmother grows roses in winter. People make a big fuss over them.”
“Lucy Gray said you smelled like roses,” said Maude Ivory. “Is your whole house full of them?”
“She grows them on the roof,” Coriolanus told her.
“The roof?” giggled Maude Ivory. “That’s a silly place for flowers. Don’t they slide off?”
“It’s a flat roof, up very high. With lots of sunlight,” he said. “You can see the whole Capitol from there.”
“Lucy Gray didn’t like the Capitol. They tried to kill her,” said Maude Ivory.
“Yes,” he acknowledged. “It couldn’t have been very nice for her.”
“She said you were the only good thing about it, and now you’re here.” Maude Ivory gave his hand a tug. “You’re going to stay here, right?”
“That’s the plan,” said Coriolanus.
“I’m glad. I like you, and that will make her happy,” she said.
By this time, the three had reached the edge of a large field that dipped down to the woods. Unlike the weedy expanse in front of the hanging tree, this one had clean, fresh, high grass and swaths of bright wildflowers. “There she is, with Shamus.” Maude Ivory pointed to a lone figure on a rock. Wearing a dress of her namesake color, Lucy Gray sat with her back to them, her head bent over her guitar.
Shamus? Who was Shamus? Another member of the Covey? Or had he misread Billy Taupe’s role in her life, and Shamus was the lover? Coriolanus put a hand above his eyes to shield them from the sunlight but could make out only her figure. “Shamus?”
“She’s our goat. Don’t be fooled by the boy’s name; she can give a gallon a day when she’s fresh,” said Maude Ivory. “We’re trying to skim enough cream for butter, but it takes forever.”
“Oh, I love butter,” said Sejanus. “That reminds me, I forgot to give you this bread. Did you have your breakfast already?”
“It’s a fact, I didn’t,” said Maude Ivory, eyeing the loaf with interest.
Sejanus handed it over. “What do you say we head back to the house and break into this now?”
Maude Ivory tucked the bread under her arm. “What about Lucy Gray and this one?” she asked, nodding at Coriolanus.
“They can join us after they’ve caught up,” said Sejanus.
“Okay,” she agreed, transferring her hand to Sejanus’s. “Barb Azure might make us wait for them. You could help me shell nuts first, if you want. They’re last year’s, but nobody’s gotten sick yet.”
“Well, that’s the best offer I’ve had in a long time.” Sejanus turned to Coriolanus. “We’ll see you later?”
Coriolanus felt self-conscious. “Do I look okay?”
“Gorgeous. Trust me, that lip’s working for you, soldier,” said Sejanus, and he headed back toward the house with Maude Ivory.
Coriolanus gave his hair a swipe and waded into the Meadow. He’d never walked in such high grass, and the sensation of it tickling his fingertips added to his nervousness. It far exceeded his hopes, getting to meet up with her in private, in a flower-filled field, with the whole day ahead. Just the opposite of what the rushed encounter in the filthy Hob would’ve been. This was, for lack of a better word, romantic. He moved forward as quietly as possible. As a rule, she mystified him, and he welcomed the chance to observe her without her usual defenses in place.
Drawing close, he took in the song she sang as she quietly strummed her guitar.
Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where they strung up a man they say murdered three?
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.
He didn’t recognize it, but it brought to mind the hanging of the rebel two days before. Had she been there? Had it prompted this?
Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where the dead man called out for his love to flee?
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.
Ah, yes. It was Arlo’s hanging, because where else would a dead man call out for his love to flee? “Run! Run, Lil! Ru — !” You’d need those unnatural mockingjays for that. But who was she inviting to meet her in the tree? Could it be him? Maybe she planned to sing this next Saturday as a secret message for him to meet her at midnight in the hanging tree? Not that he could, as he’d never be allowed off base at that hour. But she probably didn’t know that.
Lucy Gray hummed now, testing out different chords behind the melody, while he admired the curve of her neck, the fineness of her skin. As he drew nearer, his foot landed on an old branch, which broke with a sharp snap. She sprang from the rock, twisting her body as she rose, her eyes wide with fear and the guitar held out as if to block a blow. For a moment, he thought she’d flee, but her alarm shifted to relief at the sight of him. She shook her head, as close as he’d ever seen her to embarrassed, as she propped her guitar against the rock. “Sorry. Still got one foot in the arena.”
If his brief foray in the Games had left him nervous and nightmarish, he could only imagine how damaged she was. The last month had upended their lives and changed them irrevocably. Sad, really, as they were both rather exceptional people, for whom the world had reserved its harshest treatment.
“Yes, it leaves quite an impression,” he said. They stood for a moment, drinking each other in, before they moved together. The bag of ice slid from his hand as she wrapped her arms around him, melting her body into his. He locked her in an embrace, remembering how scared he’d been for her, for himself, and how he hadn’t dared fantasize about this moment as it had seemed so unattainable. But here they were, safe in a beautiful meadow. Two thousand miles away from the arena. Awash in daylight, but none between them.
“You found me,” she said.
In District 12? In Panem? In the world itself? Never mind, it didn’t matter. “You knew I would.”
“Hoped you would. Didn’t know. The odds didn’t seem in my favor.” She leaned back enough to free a hand and brushed his lips with her fingers. He felt the calluses from her guitar strings, the soft surrounding skin, as she examined the previous night’s injury. Then, almost shyly, she kissed him, sending shock waves through his body. Ignoring the pain in his lips, he responded, hungry and curious, every nerve in his body awake. He kissed her until his lip started to bleed a little, and would have kept going had she not pulled away.
“Here,” she said. “Come in the shade.”
The remaining ice cracked under his foot, and he retrieved it. “For you.”
“Why thank you.” Lucy Gray drew him over to sit at the base of the rock. Taking the bag, she bit off a corner of the plastic to make a tiny hole and lifted it high to let the melted ice water drip into her mouth. “Ah. This must be the only cold thing this side of November.” Her hand squeezed the bag, sending a light spray over her face. “It’s wonderful; lean back.” He tilted his head back and felt the stuff drizzle over his lips, licking it off just in time for another long kiss. Then she drew up her knees and said, “So, Coriolanus Snow, what are you doing in my meadow?”
What, indeed? “Just spending some time with my girl,” he answered.
“I can hardly believe it.” Lucy Gray surveyed the Meadow. “Nothing since the reaping has seemed very real. And the Games were just a nightmare.”
“For me, too,” he said. “But I want to hear what happened to you. Off camera.”
They sat side by side, shoulders, ribs, hips pressed together, hands entwined, exchanging stories as they shared the ice water. Lucy Gray began with an account of the opening days of the Games, when she’d hidden with a progressively more rabid Jessup. “We kept moving from spot to spot in those tunnels. It’s like a maze down there. And poor Jessup getting sicker and crazier by the minute. That first night, we bedded down near the entrance. That was you, wasn’t it? Who came to move Marcus?”
“It was me and Sejanus. He snuck in to . . . well, I’m not even sure what, to make some sort of statement. They sent me in to retrieve him,” Coriolanus explained.
“Was it you killed Bobbin?” she asked quietly.
He nodded. “Didn’t have a choice. And then three of the others tried to kill me.”
Her face darkened. “I know. I could hear them boasting when they came back from the turnstiles. I thought you might be dead. Scared me, the thought of losing you. I didn’t draw breath until you sent in the water.”
“Then you know what every moment was like for me,” Coriolanus said. “You were all I could think about.”
“You, too.” She flexed her fingers. “I clutched that compact so hard you could see the imprint of the rose on my palm.”
He caught her hand and kissed the palm. “I wanted so badly to help, and I felt so useless.”
She caressed his cheek. “Oh, no. I could feel you looking out for me. With the water, and the food, and believe me, taking out Bobbin was major, even though I know it must have been awful for you. It sure was for me.” Lucy Gray admitted to three of her own kills. First Wovey, although that had not been targeted. She’d merely positioned a bottle of water with a few swallows and a bit of powder as if it had been dropped accidentally in the tunnels, and Wovey had been the one to find it. “I was gunning for Coral.” She claimed Reaper, whose puddle she’d poisoned, had contracted rabies when Jessup spat in his eye in the zoo. “So that was really a mercy killing. I spared him what Jessup went through. And taking out Treech with that viper was self-defense. Still not sure why those snakes loved me so. Not convinced it was my singing. Snakes don’t even hear well.”
So he told her. About the lab, and Clemensia, and Dr. Gaul’s plan to release the snakes into the arena, and how he’d secretly dropped his handkerchief, his father’s handkerchief, into the tank so they could become accustomed to her scent. “But they found it, loaded with DNA from both of us.”
“And that’s why you’re here? Not the rat poison in the compact?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “You covered beautifully for me on that one.”
“Did my best.” She considered things for a minute. “Well, that’s it, then. I saved you from the fire, and you saved me from the snakes. We’re responsible for each other’s lives now.”
“Are we?” he asked.
“Sure,” she said. “You’re mine and I’m yours. It’s written in the stars.”
“No escaping that.” He leaned over and kissed her, flushed with happiness, because although he did not believe in celestial writings, she did, and that would be enough to guarantee her loyalty. Not that his own loyalty was in question. If he hadn’t fallen in love with any of the girls in the Capitol, it was unlikely District 12 could offer much else in the way of temptation.
A strange sensation at his neck called for attention, and he found Shamus sampling his collar. “Oh, hello. Can I help you, madam?”
Lucy Gray laughed. “Happens you can, if you’ve a mind to. She needs milking.”
“Milking. Hm. I’m not sure where to begin,” he said.
“With a bucket. Up at the house.” She squirted a bit of ice water in Shamus’s direction, and the goat released the collar. Tearing the bag, she took out the last couple of cubes, popping one in Coriolanus’s mouth and one in her own. “Sure is nice to have ice this time of year. A luxury in summer and a curse in winter.”
“Can’t you just ignore it?” asked Coriolanus.
“Not around here. In January, our pipes froze, and we had to melt down ice chunks for water on the stove. For six people and a goat? You’d be surprised how much work that takes. It was better once the snow came; that melts pretty quick.” Lucy Gray took Shamus’s lead rope and picked up her guitar.
“I got it.” Coriolanus reached for the instrument. Then he wondered if she trusted him with it.
Lucy Gray easily handed it over. “Not as nice as the one Pluribus loaned us, but it pays for our keep. Only thing is, we’re running low on strings, and the homemade ones don’t cut it. Do you think, if I wrote to him, he could send me a few? I bet he has some leftover from when he ran his club. I can pay. I’ve still got most of the money Dean Highbottom gave me.”
Coriolanus stopped in his tracks. “Dean Highbottom? Dean Highbottom gave you money?”
“He did, but it was kind of on the quiet. First, he apologized for what I’d been through, then he stuffed a wad of cash into my pocket. Glad to have it. The Covey didn’t perform while I was gone. Too shook up over losing me,” she said. “Anyway, I can pay for those strings if he’s of a mind to help.”
Coriolanus promised to ask in his next letter, but the news of Dean Highbottom’s covert generosity threw him. Why would evil incarnate help his girlfriend? Respect? Pity? Guilt? Morphling-induced whimsy? He mulled it over as they made their way to her front porch, where she hitched Shamus to a post.
“Come on in. Meet the family.” Lucy Gray took his hand and led him to the door. “How’s Tigris? I sure wish I could’ve thanked her in person for the soap and my dress. Now that I’m home, I mean to send her a letter, and maybe a song if I come up with something good enough.”
“She’d like that,” said Coriolanus. “Things aren’t going so well at home.”
“I’m sure they miss you. Is it more than that?” she asked.